Dodger, I would bet that you have managed to pop the amps. See if you can isolate the speaker wires colors coming from the back of the harness to those amps and see if you can go around them. Ideally, I would tell you to just run all new wire, but if you can chop into it and make it work, then that will tell you what the problem is/was.
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Since I already changed the H/U and it didn't make a difference, I guess checking the speakers in the front door is next. I read in other threads that there is an amp at each speaker. Is that true?
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Miami son how exactly are you disagreeing with me?.... I was always under the impression a car stereo was designed for the industry standard 4 ohm car speaker .thats what the power output is rated as is a 4 ohm load... running a lower ohm load on a amplifier whether it be an external or HU amp will increase the heat (and power to each speaker) generated by the amp... this is a pretty commonly known thing..... when I dropped my ohm load to a half an ohm by wiring my 2 dual voice coil speakers in parallel and then again in parallel and bridged my amp to one channel that put a 1/2 ohm load on the amp and it runs soo hot now I needed to add cooling fans to assist in keeping it from overheating...(the audio art amp is only 1 ohm stable bridged.)
Thats one of the things that effect price on an amp....the ability to be stable at lower ohm loads. my orion hcca is a two channel amp thats only 25 watts rms but when I bridge it and run it in a 1/2 ohm load configuration its actually outputting close to 400 watts rms to each of the 4 voice coils..this allows one to compete in a lower power class while actually having a greater power output. Most run of the mill amps are only two ohm stable and when you brige them they are 4 ohm stable....cheaper amps are less efficient and the power increase is less when cutting the ohm load.
"Using a 2 ohm speaker on a system designed for 4 ohms will result in a slight increase in decibel level at a given volume setting, but you run the risk of speaker damage from overdriving it"
this is the same thing I was saying except on higher quality amps cutting the ohms load in half actually doubles the power output of the amp in theory.... when I said the sound quality isnt as good in this configuration thats because thats what I read in one of my car stereo installation books....just checked it again. I cant speak from personal experience on that as I've never noticed it myself.
Last edited by Augiedoggy; 09-20-2009 at 09:08 PM.
I'm disagreeing with you on semantics more than anything else. Resistance creates heat, so higher resistance means more heat and amp overload. Most home audio systems are designed for 8 ohm speaker loads. Car stereo is more towards 4 ohms except in the case of subwoofers, which are either 2 or 4 ohms. A 4 ohm system can usually handle a 2 ohm speaker just fine, but the problem comes in when that 2 ohm speaker is designed primarily for low frequencies and the user then boosts the output level to compensate for the amplifier's inability to provide a decibel level to their liking. Now, the amplifier is being asked to do more than it can handle, but it isn't overheating solely because of the use of 2 ohm speakers. Like I said, the important thing is to match your speakers to your system. Any claims as far as power handling and frequency response are based on this. Mixing components is always a recipe for failure of something, regardless what the specific reason might be. Heat, whatever the cause, can destroy an amp, but even moderate heat that doesn't damage an amp can cause a reduction in efficiency and sound quality.
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thats why some amps rate different distortion levels at different ohm loads...(THD%)'and subwoofers come in 2,4 and 8 ohm load configurations because many are designed to be used in different wiring schemes to manipulate the ohm load to the amp....
for example 8 ohm subwoofers are usually installed as 2 woofers wired in a parallel to put a 4 ohm load on the amp and 2 ohm woofers are designed to be wired in a series to put a 4 ohm load on the amp....and usually dual voice coil woofers are sold in 8 or 2 ohm coil setups I actually made a mistake above and said mine were wired in a series...
this site explains it better than I can for anyone reading this who wants to understand better... http://www.termpro.com/articles/spkrz.html
